B - Bold Text

The B element suggests that text be rendered as bold text. In most cases, use of a phrase element such as STRONG is more appropriate since such elements express the meaning of the text more clearly.

The B element is a suitable choice for marking a structure for which no phrase element exists. For example, vectors in mathematics have no structural element in HTML 4.0, but bold text is often an appropriate visual rendering:

If two vectors <B CLASS=vector>v</B> and <B CLASS=vector>w</B> are orthogonal, we write <B CLASS=vector>v</B> &perp; <B CLASS=vector>w</B>.

Note the use of the CLASS attribute to add structural significance to the B elements. This allows greater flexibility when applying style sheets to different kinds of bold text.

More Information

• B in W3C HTML 4.0 Recommendation
• B in W3C HTML 3.2 Recommendation
• B in HTML 2.0 Standard
• B in WDG HTML 3.2 Reference
• B in Learning HTML 3.2 by Examples

Copyright © 1998 by Liam Quinn. This material may be distributed only subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the Open Publication License, v1.0 or later (the latest version is presently available at http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/).